The new ~$2000 i9-9980XE is a refreshed Skylake chip, using Intel's 14-nm++ process, with 18 multithreaded cores running at 3GHz with a Boost clock of 4.4GHz. If you were to lift up the lid, you would find the same Solder Thermal Interface Material we saw in the last few releases so expect some brave soul to run delidding tests at some point in the near future. As it stands now, The Tech Report's overclocking tests had the same results as Ken, with 4.5GHz across all cores being the best they could manage. While the chip does offer new features, many of them are aimed specifically at production tasks and will not benefit your gaming experience.

"Intel is bolstering its Core X high-end desktop CPUs with everything in its bag of tricks, including 14-nm++ process technology, higher clock speeds, larger caches, and solder thermal interface material. We put the Core i9-9980XE to the test to see how those refinements add up against AMD's high-end desktop onslaught."

Overview

Shopping for a CPU in 2018 has been a bit of a moving target. Between the launch of AMD's Ryzen 2000 series processors in the beginning of the year, new AMD Threadripper X and WX-series products, and a consumer CPU refresh from Intel last month, it's been difficult to keep track of.

Now we are rounding out 2018 with new products for the last remaining platform that hasn't seen a refresh this year, Intel's Core X-series of processors, namely the Intel Core i9-9980XE.

Join us, as we talk about Intel's new 9th-generation Core X-series processors, and the current landscape of HEDT desktop platforms.

A quick refresher and Dynamic Local Mode

In general, the rollout of AMD's second-generation Ryzen Threadripper processors has been a bit unconventional. While the full lineup was announced back in August, there has been a staggered release period.

Now more than two months later, we are taking a look at the 12-core Threadripper 2920X and the 24-core Threadripper 2970WX which were announced alongside the Threadipper parts that have already been shipping for quite a while now.

Introduction and Technical Specifications

Introduction

Courtesy of GIGABYTE

The X299 Designare EX motherboard is GIGiABYTE's latest flagship product offering support for Intel's HEDT chipset and processor line. With it's late entry into the fray, GIGABYTE was able to tweak its layout and feature set to make the Designare board a more appealing product over previously introduced boards. Built around the Intel X299 chlipset, the board supports the Intel LGA2066 processor line, including the Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X processors, with support for Quad-Channel DDR4 memory running at a 2667MHz speed. The X299 Designare EX can be found in retail with an MRSP of around $500.00.

For added strength, rigidity, and underside protection, GIGABYTE integrated a metal armor under plate onto the board's underside much like that seen on ASUS' TUF board line. The under plate also acts as a secondary heat dissipation path. Further, GIGABYTE integrated a metal rear I/O Shield over the rear panel components, adding out of the box protection for those normal exposed ports.

Courtesy of GIGABYTE

To power the board, GIGABYTE integrated integrated a 13-phase digital power delivery system into the X299 Designare EX's design. The digital power system was designed with IR digital power controllers and PowIRstage ICs, Server Level Chokes, and Durable Black capacitors.

There are numerous rumours about Intel roaming the news today, from CPUs being discontinued to brand new GPUs. [H]ard|OCP have heard that Kaby Lake X does not have long to live, the end of this year may see the end of that chip and a modified Skylake-X family which have moved to solder under the heatspreader to allow higher frequencies to be reached. The TIM change is not the only interesting thing about the Skylake-X refresh, its TDP could be as high as 300W, based on information from Supermicro's PR.

"In this episode of How the Rumor Mill Churns, we address some old Intel CPUs, some new Intel CPUs, and hopefully Intel CPUs that we will never see again. End of Life for good products is often disheartening, but when EOL pertains to something that should have never existed, it goes over a lot better."

Over at [H]ard|OCP is a look at the current market and the resurgence of competition which we are currently enjoying. As opposed to several pages of detailed benchmarks, the article focuses on the various feature sets that AMD and Intel currently offer and the effect it has on your current system choices. They consider a wide variety of aspects, from the quality and quantity of PCIe lanes offered on X399 and X299 platforms through to the very different choices the companies have made when it comes to PCIe storage and RAID. It has been quite a while since we have seen the competition between AMD and Intel heat up to these levels and it is wonderful to see.

"I’ve spent quite a bit of time with AMD’s Threadripper and X399 chipset and I thought I’d give our readers my impression of it and talk about the platform as well as giving interested consumers a general overview of the platform and what it has to offer. We compare it to Intel’s HEDT platform and give our take on this match up."

Well, it seems that question has been answered with our own tinkering. While there was absolutely no indication in the BIOS that our Optane Memory quad RAID-0 was bootable (the array is configurable but does not appear in the bootable devices list), I'm sitting here looking at Windows installed directly to a VROC array!

Important relevant screenshots below:

For the moment this will only work with Intel SSDs, but Intel's VROC FAQ states that 'selected third-party SSDs' will be supported, but is unclear if that includes bootability (future support changes would come as BIOS updates since they must be applied at the CPU level). We're still digging into VROC as well as AMD's RAID implementation. Much more to follow, so stay tuned!

Renowned overclocker der8auer got his hands on the new 18-core Intel Core i9-7980XE and managed to break a few records with more than a bit of LN2 and thermal paste. Following a delid, der8auer slathered the bare die and surrounding PCB with a polymer-based (Kryonaut) TIM and reattached the HIS to prepare for the extreme overclock. He even attempted to mill out the middle of the IHS to achieve a balance between direct die cooling and using the IHS to prevent bending the PCB and spread out the pressure from the LN2 cooler block, but ran into inconsistent results between runs and opted not to proceed with that method.

Using an Asus Rampage VI Apex X299 motherboard and the Core i9-7980XE at an Asus ROG event in Taiwan der8auer used liquid nitrogen to push all eighteen cores (plus Hyper-Threading) to 6.1 GHz for a CPU-Z validation. To get those clockspeeds he needed to crank up the voltage to 1.55V (1.8V VCCIN) which is a lot for the 14nm Skylake X processor. Der8auer noted that overclocking was temperature limited beyond this point as at 6.1 GHz he was seeing positive temperatures on the CPU cores despite the surface of the LN2 block being as low as -100 °C! Perhaps even more incredible is the power draw of the processor as it runs at these clockspeeds with the system drawing as much as 1,000 watts (~83 amps) on the +12V rail with the CPU being responsible for almost all of that number! That is a lot of power running through the motherboard VRMs and the on-processor FIVR!

For comparison, at 5.5 GHz he measured 70 amps on the +12V rail (840W) with the chip using 1.45V vcore under load.

For Cinebench R15, the extreme overclocker opted for a tamer 5.7 GHz where the i9-7980XE achieved a multithreaded score of 5,635 points. He compared that to his AMD Threadripper overclock of 5.4 GHz where he achieved a Cinebench score of 4,514 (granted the Intel part was using four more threads and clocked higher).

To push things (especially his power supply heh) further, the overclocker added a LN2 cooled NVIDIA Titan Xp to the mix and managed to overclock the graphics card to 2455 MHz at 1.4V. With the 3840 Pascal cores at 2.455 GHz he managed to break three single card world records by scoring 45,705 in 3DMark 11, 35,782 in 3DMark Fire Strike, and 120,425 in 3DMark Vantage!

Der8auer also made a couple interesting statements regarding overclocking at these levels including the issues of cold bugs not allowing the CPU and/or GPU to boot up if the cooler plate is too cold. On the other side of things, once the chip is running the power consumption can jump drastically with more voltage and higher clocks such that even LN2 can’t maintain sub-zero core temperatures! The massive temperature delta can also create condensation issues that need to be dealt with. He mentions that while for 24/7 overclocking liquid metal TIMs are popular choices, when extreme overclocking the alloy actually works against them because the sub-zero temperatures reduce the effectiveness and thermal conductivity of the interface material which is why polymer-based TIMs are used when cooling with liquid nitrogen, liquid helium, or TECs. Also, while most people apply a thin layer of thermal paste to the direct die or HIS, when extreme overclocking he “drowns” the processor die and PCB in the TIM to get as much contact as possible with the cooler as every bit of heat transfer helps even the small amount he can transfer through the PCB. Further, FIVR has advantages such as per-core voltage fine tuning, but it also can hold back further overclocking from cold bugs that will see the processor shut down past -100 to -110 °C temperature limiting overclocks whereas with an external VRM setup they could possibly push the processor further.

You cannot really talk about the new Skylake-X parts from Intel without bringing up AMD's Threadripper as that is the i9-7980XE and i9-7960X's direct competition. From a financial standpoint, AMD is the winner, with a price tag either $700 or $1000 less than Intel's new flagship processors. As Ryan pointed out in his review, for those whom expense is not a consideration it makes sense to chose Intel's new parts as they are slightly faster and the Xtreme Edition does offer two more cores. For those who look at performance per dollar the obvious processor of choice is ThreadRipper; for as Ars sums up in their review AMD offers more PCIe lanes, better heat management and performance that is extremely close to Intel's best.

"Ultimately, the i9-7960X raises the same question as the i9-7900X: Are you willing to pay for the best performing silicon on the market? Or is Threadripper, which offers most of the performance at a fraction of the price, good enough?"